Wilhelm List

Wilhelm List (14 May 1880-17 August 1971) was a Field Marshal of Nazi Germany during World War II. He commanded the German 12th Army in the Balkans and was accused of killing hundreds of thousands of people in reprisal killings, and in 1942 he led Army Group A on the Eastern Front before being dismissed after the defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad.

Biography
Wilhelm List was born on 14 May 1880 near Ulm, Wurttemberg, German Empire. List fought in World War I in the Bavarian Army and was promoted to Major-General in 1932 by the Weimar Republic; after Nazi Germany rose to power, he became a key leader of the Wehrmacht. List oversaw the incorporation of Austria's Bundesheer into Germany's Wehrmacht after the Anschluss in 1939, and that same year he also led the German 14th Army during the invasion of Poland, albeit without the army fighting any battles. List's time to shine was the Battle of France in 1940, where he led the German 12th Army in an offensive through the Ardennes, and the Germans conquered France in only a few months. As a result, he was one of the first twelve Field Marshals created by Adolf Hitler for military prowess.

In 1941, List led his 12th Army in the invasion of the Balkans, having convinced Bulgaria to join the Tripartite Pact on 1 March 1941 after encamping inside of the country. List was accused of being responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in reprisal killings for partisan attacks, and he led the Axis occupation forces in the Balkans before being given command of Army Group A on the Eastern Front in July 1942. He advanced almost as far as Grozny in Chechnya, but the army group outran its supply lines and was facing stiff Soviet Union resistance. On 9 September 1942 he was dismissed after disagreeing with Hitler over tactics in the invasion, and he returned home for the rest of the war. In February 1948, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Allied Powers for war crimes committed in the war, but in December 1952 he was released from prison due to ill health. He went on to die at the age of 91 in 1971.